The invention refers to a system designed to reduce the force exerted by a driver of an automotive vehicle, especially in the case of heavy vehicles such as a truck, to actuate the clutch pedal.
As the load capacity of the trucks and consequently the power of the motors increases, it has become necessary to manufacture clutches having a greater pressure-plate load, which requires a greater effort on the part of the driver to actuate the clutch pedal.
The efforts of the prior art to solve this problem proved to be complex, expensive and, moreover, insufficient. An example of an attempt by the prior art to solve the problem is that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,038,907, where a spring is used to exert force upon the clutch pedal so as to aid actuation. This system, however, is of complex construction and high cost, and does not provide good modulation in actuating the clutch.
Therefore, it is an objective of the invention to provide a system to reduce the force to actuate the clutch pedal in automobiles, particularly heavy vehicles such as trucks.
Another objective of the invention is to provide an inexpensive system that is not complex.
These objectives are achieved by this invention that provides a system reducing the force to actuate the clutch pedal in automobiles, which comprises an actuating arm provided at one end with a pedal and, at the other, with a pivot pin for the clutch master cylinder rod, the mentioned actuating arm being pivoted about a point located between its two ends, so that a force applied to the pedal causes the other end of the actuating arm to push the rod of the clutch master cylinder. The master cylinder itself is pivotable around at least one pin fixed on a vehicle body support, and the actuating arm, upon actuating the pedal, describes a rotational path for the pivot pin around the pivot point between the 2 ends of the actuating arm, so that the component of the lever arm that constitutes the moment applied to the pin between the ends of the actuating arm gradually decreases, thus reducing the moment applied to the pivot pin and the effort of the driver to actuate the clutch.